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Wendy Sura Thomson

Summon the Tiger

Synopsis

A toddler in an emotionally explosive and unstable family has her leg amputated. In spite of significant hurdles, she powers through to become a successful career woman and equally successful single parent.

Author Biography

Wendy Sura Thomson received her bachelor’s degree from the University of Miami and her master’s degree from Florida State University. She has worked in finance, management consulting, strategy and process design in the telecommunication, automotive and information technology industries.
Thomson is semiretired and lives in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan with her two Irish Setters.

Author Insight

Character development

I grew up believing I was an unlikable, inconvenient distraction. It led me down a path of extraordinary self-reliance and self-direction. I never realized how deeply self-reliance and self-direction was ingrained, and how strongly those two traits were, until I had the luxury of thinking deeply about life and relationships, decades later.
Even now it comes as a surprise how some in the world see me. a family shows no acknowledgment at all, old classmates fete me with mementos of effusive thanks for orchestrating a class reunion, nominating me for a high school-based lifetime achievement award. Instead of being told no one would ever like me, I receive come-ons from men who have worked on a house addition for me, seeing how I live life day after day, or from men who have simply read this book.
There are those that have said "It's hard to love a Sherman tank." I guess there are also those that admire and respect strength without being intimidated. I need to stick with the latter.

Book Excerpt

Summon the Tiger

The choir traditionally put on two concerts, one

near the end of each semester. The winter concert featured Brahms’s Requiem – that’s one challenging piece. It is so rich

– I remember thinking I didn’t like it very much when I first heard it, but when I was in it – inside of it – the tapestry of

sound was astoundingly and almost overwhelmingly beautiful. That concert was my first solo work since elementary

school… the first time after I must have realized that there were actually people out there listening. Desiring the ever-

understated presentation, Ms. Micheletti dictated that the soloists were not to be dressed in formal clothes with chairs and

stands in front of the chorus. We simply stood in the front row in our choir robes and took a step out to sing our solos, and

then stepped back to totally blend in. I will never forget that step out. I sang the first solo – I actually pulled it off – but

when I stepped back into line my knees were shaking so much I fell into the person next to me. I didn’t have a friendly

face in the audience upon which to fix my gaze: my parents didn’t come. It wasn’t important enough for them to take time

off work – at least, work was the excuse they gave me.

The first time something like that happens it is devastating. After that it doesn’t matter much anymore.